Hi there,

I've looked about the internet for some advice on how to best stat Sonic Weaponry for use in Dark Heresy, as the group may be encountering people who can use it. Has anybody already statted these, officially or unofficially? And if not, are there any suggestions?

Two types i'd suggest:

Prolonged: I'd suggest the weapon doing temporary perception stat damage over time (maybe low and high power settings to speed up the effect), if the perception reaches a temporary zero, then a toughness test is made to prevent physical damage. Probably best used as a siege/heavy weapon, as people tend to move around in a gun fight.

Pulse: Shotgun like (could also be a grenade? Bang-without-a-flash grenade), disorienting, leaves someone with a -20 (or 30) to perception, take a toughness test to see if the sound blast does any internal damage. Duration of disorienting effect.

-To hit rolls waived? Instead roll to see if weapon malfunctions.

-Wearer should be using hearing protection for pulse weapon, otherwise they get take similar damage. I think some other form of operator protection should be used, but I can't quite figure what.

About the only ideas I've got is the Noise Marine weapons-

Sonic Blaster, automatic weapon which probably has a small blast radius, range of a las-gun and some fairly hideous PEN a bit like a Melta

Doom Siren, yell at people and works fairly much like a very noisy flamer, without setting them on fire. I'd probably add a stun effect to it.

Blast Master, has two settings, shoot the crap out of lots of people with very long range, +50% further than a las gun and the other setting with twice the range of a las gun that just blows stuff up. Pen, around a hellgun's or so, causes pinning checks.

I think they do have a psy-effect as well which makes them a bit more hurty... comparatively. Could always just steal the Weirding Module out of Dune and have people yell EMPERAAAAH! really loud into it.

The Eldar have sonic cannons as battlefield support and super heavy weapons. They operate by drawing a line and everything under it gets hit by a sonic wave through the ground.

Not that that helps you. I'd say a flamer style attack makes the most sense, although even with modern technology the ability to create a sound spot. You could vary the damage based on the range from the source.

For Sonic weaponry I would tend toward it ignoring Armor and Cover, except for environmentally sealed armor and use a variation of the Flame quality but test Toughness instead of Agility.

Elurindel said:

Instead of creating all new weapons, I would probably take a lasgun and just make a new type of damage-Sonic in place of energy

here is my Idea of what they type of damage might do- Sonic weapons ignore primative armour, power armour only reduces damage by half AP, target hit has AG reduced by 1d10 for 1d5 rounds.

There is a sonic gun in the Rogue Trader book 'Into the Storm'. It's a rifle with a somewhat short range and capable of semi-auto (burst fire, whatever you want to call it) respectable damage (explosive type) and has shocking and tearing. Low pen though. (I'd be more specific but I don't want to just post the statline on the forum)

For the record, this gun is also Imperial made and used on some navel vessels.

Hi there,

how about giving a SMG-sized weapon (with added bulk!) stats similiar to the Feedback Screech Talent (p.115) of the Machine-Priest? This attack is sonic,a fter all.

Otherwise, most ideas have already been given. For an easy mod, I would suggest to take the stats of a flamer or flame pistole, add the stunning quality and remove the "sets things on fire" feature. This might work kinda good for a rather wide, focused weapon. Counting an victim of such a weapon to be deaf for 2d10 - TB rounds would be my approach. Shattering the eardrums on dice results of 1-1, 2-2,3-3, etc.

Thanks for the feedback. I may not have been specific enough as to what I wanted, but those who assumed I referred to Noise Marines were correct. I'll take a shot at putting some stats together soon.